A Fungus With a Lot of History Behind It
In the previous installment we opened the chronicle of ergot, the fungus (Claviceps purpurea) that gave rise to compounds as famous as LSD and Hydergine. Its relevance, however, does not begin with Hofmann: the relationship between this grain parasite and human beings goes back a very long way. Here we follow that thread from classical antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages, when ergot stopped being merely an anonymous poison and became a historical suspect.
Greece and Rome: The Trail Rudolf Kobert Looked For
Beyond its famous link to the Eleusinian Mysteries, it is worth asking whether the physicians of antiquity knew ergot in its practical, non-ritual aspect. That question was asked by Rudolf Kobert, a historian of medicine and pharmacology active between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Kobert searched for possible mentions of the fungus in the Hippocratic Corpus (fifth and fourth centuries BCE), in the botany of Dioscorides (first century), and in the work of Galen (second century). He also reviewed Roman authors—Julius Caesar, Lucretius, Pliny the Elder, Cornelius Celsus—and in all of them believed he found references compatible with ergot. The important nuance is that these allusions always describe its negative side: the disorders caused by eating parasitized grain. Greco-Roman medicine, if it knew ergot, knew it as a health problem, not as a remedy.
These identifications should be taken with caution. They are probable readings, not closed proofs, and some specialists dispute them: ancient texts describe symptoms, not species, and the same clinical picture can have several causes. The hypothesis of Hofmann, Wasson, and Ruck about Eleusis—long after Kobert—reinforces the idea that the fungus was not foreign to the Greek world, but it does not make it a certainty.
When a Form Replaces a Content
After the decline of Rome, the West entered a long cultural reorganization in which Christianity ended up prevailing. The Edict of Thessalonica (380), issued by Theodosius, banned all other cults and sealed the closing of the Eleusinian Mysteries. What matters here is not the religious controversy but a mechanism well documented by historians: syncretism. To take root among pagan populations, the new faith reused preexisting symbols and gave them new meanings.
The case of the Eucharist is the most cited. The wheat-flour host, its circular shape, and the ear of grain as an emblem link to earlier agrarian and solar traditions, Eleusis included. The difference, for those who have studied the possible entheogenic role of the Eleusinian cult, is one of nature: where there may once have been a brew with real pharmacological effects, the later rite keeps the image—union with the divine—but not the chemical substrate that sustained it. This is an interpretive hypothesis, not a settled fact, and it should be presented as such.
The Middle Ages and the Name of the Poison: Ergotism
Here the references stop being doubtful. Throughout the medieval period, mass poisonings by ergot are documented, grouped under the generic term ergotism. The first well-attested plague occurred in Paris in the year 945; earlier outbreaks are suspected—one is mentioned in Germany around 857—but without firm data to confirm it.
The social pattern is revealing: the common people were the hardest hit, because they depended on the cheapest, darkest bread, made from poorer-quality grain more exposed to contamination by the fungus. Ergotism did not strike at random; it struck whoever ate poorly.
Two Faces of the Same Poisoning
Ergotism came in two forms. The gangrenous form involved nausea and pain in the extremities, which turned black, dried out to a mummified appearance, and could detach at the joints. The burning sensation earned it the name ignis sacer, “sacred fire.”
The convulsive form, by contrast, showed up as painful spasms, convulsions, and, at times, hallucinations, mania, or psychotic episodes. It predominated in Germany and eastern Europe, while the gangrenous form was more frequent in the west: an asymmetry usually attributed to different strains of ergot and, therefore, to their different alkaloid profiles.
St. Anthony’s Fire and the Unwitting Cure of the Camino
The scale of the gangrenous epidemics led to the founding, in the south of France in 1093, of the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony. Hence the ailment also became known as St. Anthony’s fire. Its monks built nearly four hundred hospitals, and many patients improved there for a reason that was not fully understood at the time: the bread they were given contained no rye.
That detail explains a curious episode on the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrims arriving from France and Central Europe, where rye dominated the diet, asked the monks for help and received wheat bread as they moved south through France and Spain. By the end of the journey many arrived restored—without knowing why—but relapsed when they went home and went back to the contaminated bread. The “cure” was repeated with each new pilgrimage. The Hospital Brothers also had some botanical knowledge and administered plants such as pellitory, St. John’s wort, and wormwood to relieve symptoms.
Witches, the Possessed… or Ergot?
Convulsive ergotism has been proposed as one explanation for the outbreaks of mass hysteria—frenzied dancing, convulsions, visions—that were attributed to possession and witchcraft, especially between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. Against them, people invoked St. Vitus, who ended up as the patron saint of dancers.
It is a seductive hypothesis and worth stating with caution: not every episode of collective panic comes down to a toxin, and the witch hunts did not have a single cause. A widespread misunderstanding should also be cleared up: the expression “St. Vitus’ dance” does not refer to convulsive ergotism but to Sydenham’s chorea, a neurological complication of rheumatic fever.
A Critical Reading and Harm Reduction
Several ideas in this story circulate more as certainties than as what they really are: reasonable hypotheses. The identification of ergot in ancient texts, its role at Eleusis, and its weight in the witch hunts are plausible readings, not demonstrated conclusions. Faced with accounts that promise a single cause for complex historical phenomena, the sensible thing is to ask for nuance.
On the health side, ergot is above all a reminder of toxicity. Its alkaloids are powerful vasoconstrictors capable of causing serious harm, and its history is that of a food poisoning, not of a sought-after “trip.” Nothing narrated here describes a safe recreational use: it is historical education, not a guide. To place Hofmann’s work and the chemistry of these compounds in context, we will pick up the thread in the coming installments.
Among the sources that have treated this history are Rudolf Kobert’s works on ergot, George Barger’s classic monograph, F. J. Bove’s study, V. Lapinskas’s synthesis on ergotism, and Jonathan Ott’s Pharmacotheon. Those who want to dig deeper can look them up by author and title.
